Live Like Line
No one expected this Iowa City team to recover from the loss of their star player, but instead, they had a miracle season.
Caroline Found was a senior at West High School in Iowa City. Although Caroline is her given name, everyone called her Line or Linner. She was a setter on the varsity volleyball team and had just won the State Championship the year before.
On the outside, it seemed like she had her life together. For the most part, she did. In reality, her mom was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was staying in the hospital getting treatment. This was a struggle for Line and her family to watch.
Line was that kid that was nice to everyone and could always put a smile on peoples’ faces when they were down. Even with her mom sick, she would always look on the bright side of life no matter what and lived each day to the fullest.
On August 12, 2011, after a volleyball hangout at the family barn, she took her moped to go see her mom. This was not something that was uncommon for Line. However, right before she got to the hospital, she lost control of the moped, ran into a tree, and died on impact.
Her death had a major impact on her family, friends, teammates, and school. Twelve days after her death, her mother passed away from cancer. In less than two weeks, the Found family lost a daughter and a mother.
Although she is gone, her story will live on.
In 2018, LD Entertainment created the movie “The Miracle Season” showing us the story of Caroline Found and her volleyball team. The movie focused on how this loss has an effect on not only her team but also her school and town as a whole.
A big point in the movie was trying to figure out who was going to replace Line as the setter. There was not one person at the school or on the team that wanted to do it. Their coach Kathy Bresnahan told Kelley, who was Line’s best friend, that there was no other person to do this job.
Kelley talks to Line’s father, Ernie, to make sure that it is okay, and he gives her his blessing. He reminds her that it is okay to miss Line, but that she should also “Live Like Line.” This phrase becomes the team’s slogan.
As she is learning this new position, they are still forfeiting games, and then for their homecoming game, the unexpected happened.
They played and they won.
After this, the team decided to play for Line, and this gave them a new sense of purpose. Once they made this decision, they won every game and were able to play in the State Championship.
It is good to see that sports movies are entering other sports now rather than just focusing on baseball, basketball, and football.
For the overall movie, the storyline really comes out strong, about how losing Line had affected the school and her team and what they did to honor her that season.
When it comes to actual volleyball, it is very clear that they used the actresses for most of it. In the games, we only really see serving and a few rally shots, but we can see in the girls' faces that they are actually playing.
The fact that the actresses are playing is good, but it also makes volleyball as a sport look easy. There isn’t much going on during the actual games. The plays aren’t that hard and there are more close-ups of people than the actual game.
They are trying to tell more of the story, rather than how the actual game works, but there should have been more involvement of professional volleyball players.
At the end of the day, this is a movie and a story that has touched a lot of peoples’ lives and made an impact in many communities.
We should all remember to always Live, Like, Line.
